Land use science has traditionally used case-study approaches for in-depth investigation of land use change processes and impacts. Meta-studies synthesize findings across case-study evidence to identify general patterns. In this paper, we provide a review of meta-studies in land use science. Various meta-studies have been conducted, which synthesize deforestation and agricultural land use change processes, while other important changes, such as urbanization, wetland conversion, and grassland dynamics have hardly been addressed. Meta-studies of land use change impacts focus mostly on biodiversity and biogeochemical cycles, while meta-studies of socioeconomic consequences are rare. Land use change processes and land use change impacts are generally addressed in isolation, while only few studies considered trajectories of drivers through changes to their impacts and their potential feedbacks. We provide a conceptual framework for linking meta-studies of land use change processes and impacts for the analysis of coupled human–environmental systems. Moreover, we provide suggestions for combining meta-studies of different land use change processes to develop a more integrated theory of land use change, and for combining meta-studies of land use change impacts to identify tradeoffs between different impacts. Land use science can benefit from an improved conceptualization of land use change processes and their impacts, and from new methods that combine meta-study findings to advance our understanding of human–environmental systems.

Urban areas—their inhabitants and their infrastructure—are often concentrated in exposed areas like coasts and drylands and thus vulnerable to extreme events. Climate change is driving increasing frequency and magnitude of such events, such that risk to people and infrastructure in cities is one of the prime manifestations of the interaction between these two major components of global change. As a result of this accelerating risk, there is increased awareness of and interest in the concept of resilience among city practitioners and urban scholars alike. We present a conceptual framework for urban social-ecological-technological systems (SETS) that integrates three domains: social/equity/governance, environmental/ecological, and engineering/built environment/technology issues. We assert that socioecological systems and socially sensitive engineering approaches that fail to incorporate the third dimension may reduce resilience to climate-related disaster. The Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network is exploring: 1) potential solutions such as green infrastructure and safe-to-fail design, 2) modifications of ecosystem services approaches and vulnerability and resilience assessment under a SETS framing, and 3) participatory visioning of sustainable, resilient futures to guide urban transformation. A SETS approach enriches these activities through sensible balancing of the three domains, evaluating tradeoffs among them and opportunities for emergence that can support transformation. The infrastructure of the future must leverage ecosystem services, improve social well being, and exploit new technologies in ways that benefit all segments of urban populations and are context specific. Contexts are defined not only by the biophysical environment but also by culture and institutions of each place. The SETS conceptual framework is being applied in ten diverse western hemisphere cities to co-develop, with city practitioners, visions of resilient SETS infrastructure for an uncertain future.

This panel is intended to promote broad-based discussion of key approaches to conceptualizing urban resilience, to compare insights in how to engage with practitioners from a network of cities at all stages of research and implementation, to refine new approaches to co-producing urban resilience to extreme events, and to evaluate cross-cultural differences of perspective on urban resilience and sustainability.

The challenge of ensuring that urban resilience agendas do not compromise sustainability and equity goals demands that our cities be capable of envisioning future pathways and anticipating trade-offs of resilience strategies and solutions. While future-thinking is a common practice in urban planning, cities will need to get more ambitious about how they factor in foresight and unintended consequences of actions at very distant temporal scales into the knowledge systems that underpin their planning and decision-making. We ask, to what extent is the knowledge coming to bear on urban resilience planning and strategies inclusive of sustainability and equity goals? What kinds of upgrades or innovations are needed to make city knowledge systems more anticipatory? We draw upon the knowledge-action systems analysis (KASA) currently implemented in multiple US and Latin America cities to explore the types and networks of knowledge shaping urban resilience in different context and how conducive they are to moving beyond risk-based knowledge systems to enhancing anticipatory capacities for cities.

What are the futures we hope to create? And, how can we guide the development of these futures? Positive future visioning and scenario development are important tools for guiding urban sustainability and resilience planning. Sustainability and resilience pathways for the long-term future are often difficult to envision and may often be different or even be incompatible. The co-development of future scenarios with local practitioners allows for the exploration of diverse plausible, desirable futures while examining potential solutions, conflicts, and tradeoffs. In particular, the co-production of scenarios frees both practitioners and researchers from the typically problem-oriented focus on the short-term future and allows for positive long-term visions, innovations, and transformational changes.